Kim's match reviews and pop culture emporium

 The encounter that a part of me was wondering if I would ever see cause the alliance vs Crush girls dynamic was so foregrounded to the point where I forgot this was even a possibility. The match is structurally a very simple one. There's a short initial period of Devil Masami offense to begin with a baba style neck breaker. She tries to follow up with a crossbody which Dump ends up catching her and placing Devil on the apron. when Devil reenters Dump grabs her by the hair and tosses her around in a frankly vicious manner. This is followed up by a long period of focus on the head and secondarily the body. The head work is the thing that is of note cause so much of it is focused directly on the eye which is a sick detail I love. This leads to an almost proto Jcvd sans the powder kind of performance from Devil masami Which I love. I do like in comparison to bloodsport that there's still an element of danger due to attrition and Dump's size. A super electric chair drop gets th...

 Asuka And Omori start out this with an exchange of matwork with the interesting thing being Omori's taped up knee and a momentary focus on the back by Asuka's side. Omori does get to ringside and the action resets essentially. The fresh combi take control on the two rookies in turn and it's a fun showcase of cohesion between the two of them. Tateno ends up getting the first fall. The second fall is a really brisk almost to the point of abrupt turnaround for Asuka the rookies with a bunch of fun miscommunication spots and teamwork by the rookies. The third fall is where the leg damage on Omori comes back into play. The solidifying of the future jumping bomb angels via getting the first and third falls is fun to see. 7.7/10 easily my favorite of the six person tags on this disk involving the rookies. Because there's no last match for Jumbo hori on the set i'll add my thoughts on Hori's AJW career here. In a landscape where the bodytypes are pretty limited Hori fe...

 We start off with some arm work on Chigusa alongside some work on the abdomen by the Devil and Omori. The structural heels throw Chigusa into her corner provoking Yamazaki to enter the fray. This leads into nothing short of an onslaught by Devil and Omori on Yamazaki's abdomen using power moves leading into the fall. The second fall continues the face in peril on Yamazaki before she's able to tag into Chigusa and the fall turns into a battle of size vs ace energy. Omori is able to block one of Chigusa's signature strikes to the abdomen post Irish whip but ends up suplexed for the fall. Both teams have had their respective dynamics established the interesting portion of the third fall is Yamazaki getting a figure four on Omori and the faces taking advantage. Chigusa injures her leg on a rolling wheel kick and gets pulled to the outside Yamazaki obstructs the heels from getting back into ring resulting in a double count out. Good match well executed match. Something about th...

 Ogura starts off the match like a ball of fire with a couple of running knees to Tateno. Things settle down eventually a fun touch in this match is Jaguar and Devil being more aggressive in attacking Yamazaki early on cutting off her prodigiousness offense at least early on. There's a series of fascinating control segments the most obvious one being a peril segment on Ogura. A slight one focusing on Omori's legs. Jaguar gets caught by Omori at one point and becomes the focus with Yamazaki getting in some sick throws. The finish comes about via Devil Masami getting on the offense against Yamazaki and a missed cross body. Everyone played their role well ending up in a fun match. No great shakes but after a double shot of the hair match and the tag final any match would struggle. 7.5/10

 We start off with the Alliance in identical prematch outfits starting the match with a massive attack on the crush girls and a body double for Dump which is such a fun touch. The first fall is defined by the alliance taking advantage of the lead given by the sneak attack to focus on targeting Chigusa's injured knee. The alliance is eventually disqualified for excessive use of illegal tactics giving the crush girls the first fall. It's readily apparent that the alliance don't give a fuck because they're confident the damage they inflicted will be telling enough to win them the war. The second fall is an odd one cause it's so short due to a surprise knockout of Lioness Asuka via doomsday device which rocks. Prior to the finish you get what you'd expect Chigusa trying to get back into the action while trying to protect her leg and Asuka being a house of fire. The third fall is essentially a struggle for survival for the crush girls with Chigusa having to start off...

 Thios is a surprisingly fun match given the things they have to work around. Of note Jaguar Yokota comes into the match with taped up feet. The thing I love about how Jaguar approaches this is she doesn't stick to counters she's very forward oriented in terms of staying on the offensive by targeting the legs of both crush girls. The key moment comes when the crush girls do actually start attacking Jaguar's leg eventually leading to her being out of the action for the remainder. This leads to a really compelling finishing stretch of Omori desperately trying to the one knockout attack that can finish the crush girls before the attrition of being in a handicap match takes its toll. She fails and it;s a great spectacle. 8/10. Small thing Love that Chigusa retains the buzzcut

It's been a while since I first watched this one. I think it was one of the first Joshi matches I watched last decade. It's always been a striking one and honestly one of the things I was looking forward to when I started doing these posts on BlueSky before moving them here alongside having a more complete view of AJW of this vintage. We start off with a freaking body double of Dump coming to the ring with the actual Dump being under the manager's mask attacking Chigusa Before the bell. This is match that the lucha heads myself included will love. It's honestly a really simple match structurally Chigusa tries to get the Sunday shot off that will overcome the advantage brought about by the sneak attack alongside weapon usage by Dump. Best Dump Performance on the set so far. Chigusa ends up bleeding buckets and at one point has on a sharpshooter with blood streaming down her face in an iconic image. There's something in the dogged defiance in Chigusa's performance...

 A jump to the 90s Ozaki is such a great piece of shit in this. When i read the Big Egg pieces about this match and saw Devil Masami doing an undertaker, I couldn't process it because it was so incongruent jumping from 80s Devil to this. The moment The faces got a two count on Devil, and she literally did the sit-up kickout the little kid in me I will admit hooped and hollered a tad. The early section is pretty fluid tilting towards a face shine with a false face in peril segment in the middle of it. One thing I love is how dangerous Chigusa's sleeper is framed as both in terms of opponent reaction and commentary. The actual face in peril segment comes from Chigusa getting slammed into the turnbuckle at ringside with both faces being slammed into with weapons at ringside. Both faces end up bleeding in the aftermath. There's a really fun chain sleeper spot in the corner. The match breaks down with Ozaki dismantling one of the turnbuckles as a weapon. When the faces make thei...

This is one hell of a sprint the angels start off with double dropkicks. They can't take sustained advantage and the interesting thing in terms of throughline of team dynamics is Yamazaki once again being able to hold her own more than Tateno. The advantage for the angels comes from targeting the legs it initially starts targeting Omori but the consistent target is surprisingly Jaguar. The finish comes about via a rollup on Omori for the upset. Not a spectacular match but solidly reallyy fun good start to disk ten. 7.5/10 

 We start off the match with a wide camera of the super early mat work. The first thing we can see clearly is the two of them trading snap mares. Jaguar comes in with an injured knee as stated by the commentary team. She really takes the initiative and preemptively targets Asuka's leg and there's some vicious stuff in there. The turning point in terms of Jaguar's leg damage coming up in the course of the match is Asuka reversing Jaguar's figure four. Slight tangent but something I find interesting throughout the 80s Joshi set is the treatment of the reversal of the figure four. This feels like the first time that the typical Flair thing or at least what I think of as the Flair thing of the reversal of the figure four inverting who's in pain thing whereas previously the reversal was purely used as a maneuvering tactic to get a rope break. The finishing stretch is defined by both women going for kill shots with Asuka missing a top rope kneedrop allowing to hit a kneec...

 Both competitors start out with double leg takedowns with Devil and Chigusa going for a single leg Boston crab and a sharpshooter respectively. They both have moments but Devil pretty clearly has an edge with regards to sustained control on the mat. That quick start allows Devil to control the pace of the match at large with notable moments being a Romero special and figure four along with electric chair drop. Chigusa is firmly put onto the back foot by devil's multipronged offensive and hasto rely on counters. One thing I love about devil's performance is how as the match carries on and fatigue sets in her punches get less tight. Neither wrestler is able to get enough offense in to put the other away with the match ending in a time limit draw. Love this 9/10

 The energy is off the charts here. Biggest show in the major arena for puro in this period and hot damn the vibes do not disappoint. The alliance comes out first going buck wild on the announce table area cowing the guest announcer. The first fall is really defined by the alliance taking control and dominating the vast majority via a combination of size and weapon shenanigans. How it impacts Itsuki and Noriyo is really interesting. Noriyo does a really admirable job portraying a fired up but overwhelmed babyface. Itsuki when she can get some one-on-one time with either member of the alliance, she shows her quality though neither Angel can really gain a foothold. The most hype moment of the first fall from the babyfaces is when they double dropkick a table the alliance is trying to use as a battering ram into the faces of the heels. The fall breaks down leading to a double count out. The second fall starts off with Dump discarding her shiai as a false act of good faith. The aggress...

I put off writing about this for a while. Mostly because when I first watched it I could recognize I was being really underwhelmed to a degree where I knew I needed to take time away and come back to this one after focusing on other shit for a while namely my fantasy reading. Now that I've rewatched this I like the component pieces Peterson does a good job of playing a cowardly chickenshit who can only really get an advantage using sneak attacks. Though I think in this context it puts a ceiling on the typical degree of danger for Chigusa as a babyface even if just the danger of Peterson stealing which is my big critique there needed to be more opportunity for Peterson to steal it. 7.0/10 It makes me think if I would rate these matches with foreigners more highly if women's wrestling in the anglo sphere wasn't so deeply in it's purely novelty phase in the 80s that it feels like so few get to stick around for long enough to form what feels like a coherent cohort due to wh...